Banana Seat
By the summer of 1978, every kid on Briarwood Court knew a witch lived somewhere in the neighborhood.
Nobody agreed on where.
That was how you knew it was true.
Joey Dyer said she lived at the end of Walton Lane, in the split-level with the brown siding and the busted birdbath out front.
Tommy Bell said she lived behind the drainage ditch, where the storm pipe emptied into the creek and the trees leaned too close together.
Eddie Wilkes said witches did not live in subdivisions because his mother had said so, and his mother worked at the library.
Susan DeMarco said that didn’t mean anything.
“Your mom also says SPAM is meat,” she said.
Eddie did not have a good answer for that.
They sat on their bikes at the corner where Briarwood met Walton, four kids on two wheels in the thick part of July. Heat lifted off the street in clear waves. Lawns buzzed with cicadas and sprinkler ticks. Somewhere, somebody’s dad swore at a mower.
Eddie’s bike was the best of them.
Metallic green Huffy. White banana seat. Chrome sissy bar. High handlebars with black grips still tacky from the package.
His father had brought it home in the back of the station wagon three days after putting a fist through the hollow-core bathroom door.
Nobody said that part.
They just said, “Nice bike.”
Joey rode a red Schwinn Sting-Ray with one pedal that clicked and a yellow banana seat split open along the side.
Tommy’s bike was older, blue, with playing cards clothespinned to the spokes so it sounded faster than it was.
Susan rode her brother’s hand-me-down Sears bike because her parents said a good bike was a good bike, even if the crossbar was too high and the seat pinched.
Mrs. Grettle’s house waited at the end of the block.
Rust-orange shutters. Curtains that never moved. The lawn wasn’t dead, but it had given up in organized patches. A black cat sat in the front window like it had been placed there.
“That’s where she lives,” Joey said.
“You said she lived behind the ditch last week,” Susan said.
“She moves.”
“Witches don’t move houses.”
“You don’t know.”
Tommy pulled a crabapple from his pocket. Small. Hard. Bruised from being carried around all afternoon.
“Bet you won’t hit the door.”
“I bet you won’t shut up,” Susan said.
Tommy grinned. The kind of grin that meant everyone else was about to get blamed for something he started.
Across the street, Mr. Hobb came out of his garage carrying a paper grocery sack in one arm and a bundle of mail in the other.
Everybody knew Mr. Hobb.
He lived in a pale blue ranch with a flag bracket by the garage and a porch light shaped like a lantern. Retired from the machine shop, or the post office, or the rail yard, depending on which adult was talking.
He fixed lawn mower blades. Sharpened hedge clippers. Kept an air compressor in the garage and let kids fill their tires.
At Halloween, he gave out full-size Hershey bars.
Not fun-size.
Full-size.
“Afternoon, bicycle club,” Mr. Hobb called.
Tommy shoved the crabapple deeper into his pocket.
“Hot enough to make the devil ask for lemonade.”
Joey laughed too hard.
Mr. Hobb winked.
Mrs. Grettle’s front door opened. She wore a sleeveless house dress and black shoes. Thin arms. Gray hair pinned close to her head. No wart. No broom. No crooked hat.
Her black cat wound through her feet and stopped at the edge of the porch, watching.
“You children have homes?”
Tommy laughed first. Joey followed because Joey had never let original thought slow him down.
Susan stayed quiet.
Mrs. Grettle looked from one child to the next, taking inventory like she expected one of them to be holding a rock.
Her eyes stopped on Tommy’s pocket.
“Whatever you’ve got in there, throw it somewhere else.”
Tommy’s grin twitched.
“I don’t got anything.”
“Then you won’t miss it.”
Eddie backed his bike one inch. The new chain clicked. The white banana seat squeaked under him, loud in the heat.
Mrs. Grettle’s eyes moved to the sound, then back to their faces.
“You keep away from my house.”
“We’re in the street,” Tommy said.
Mrs. Grettle stepped onto the porch.
“Then keep to it.”
Mr. Hobb shook his head from across the street.
“Now, Helen.”
The two old people stared across the road at each other.
Mr. Hobb smiled at her.
Mrs. Grettle did not smile back.
She stepped inside and shut the door.
The black cat remained on the porch, watching them.
“Don’t mind her,” Mr. Hobb said. “She’s harmless.”
Susan watched Mrs. Grettle’s yellow curtains close. One corner still trembled, as if the hand behind it had not let go.
The next day, they went back.
They rode past Mrs. Grettle’s house once.
Nothing.
Twice.
Still nothing.
The third time, Joey yelled, “Witch!” and took off pedaling like his tires had caught fire.
Mrs. Grettle appeared at the window.
Just the outline of her. Pale face behind glass. One hand pulling the curtain aside.
“Man,” Tommy said, laughing. “She’s gonna cook you.”
“Can’t catch me.”
“She doesn’t have to. She’ll put a spell on your butt.”
“Your butt,” Joey said, still pedaling.
Eddie laughed, then stood on his pedals to catch them.
The Huffy chain jumped.
Not all the way off. Just enough.
His right foot slammed down with no resistance. The handlebars jerked. The front tire caught the broken edge of pavement where the gutter had lifted from a maple root.
The bike went sideways.
Eddie hit the street on his knee first. Then his elbow. Then his chin.
The world flashed white.
By the time it cleared, he was sitting in the road with blood running down his shin and his new bike lying beside him.
The banana seat had twisted. The chain sagged loose. One grip had a black scrape through it. The chrome sissy bar leaned slightly to the left.
Joey crouched beside the bike.
“Your dad’s gonna kill you.”
“Shut up.”
“He is.”
“Shut up.”
Susan knelt beside Eddie.
“Your chin’s bleeding.”
Eddie looked down.
Red drops spotted the collar of his Star Wars T-shirt.
Across the street, a garage door rumbled open.
Mr. Hobb stood in the shade, wiping his hands on a red rag.
“That sounded pretty painful,” he said.
Mr. Hobb walked down the driveway with a slow, easy gait. Brown work pants. White undershirt. Suspenders. Gray hair combed back and wet-looking at the edges. The red rag hung from one hand.
He crouched by the Huffy.
“Chain jumped,” he said. “Seat’s crooked too. Took a good knock, didn’t she?”
Eddie wanted to say it was fine.
It was not fine.
The chain guard had bent inward. The pedal clipped it with a dull tick each time Mr. Hobb turned it.
“New bike gets wrecked this quick, somebody’s dad is bound to notice.”
Eddie looked up fast.
Mr. Hobb tapped the chain guard with one finger.
“Bring her in. I can straighten that. Tighten the seat. Pop the chain back proper. Five minutes.”
Susan stood.
“We should go.”
Mr. Hobb glanced at her.
“You’re Susan DeMarco, aren’t you?”
She did not answer right away.
“Your brother Tony used to bring me his tires. Always running over glass. That boy could find a nail in a swimming pool.”
Susan’s mouth tightened.
“Yeah.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Working at Krogers.”
“Good boy.”
Tony was not a good boy.
Tony sold stolen cigarettes out of his gym bag and once put a dead mouse in a nun’s desk at St. Agnes.
Mr. Hobb lifted Eddie’s bike.
The green frame caught the sun.
The inside of his garage smelled like warm rubber, machine oil, pipe tobacco, and old sugar.
Every tool had a place. Wrenches on pegboard. Screwdrivers sorted by handle color. Coffee cans labeled in black marker: BOLTS, WASHERS, COTTER PINS. A roll of gray duct tape hung from a nail beside a coil of clothesline.
Bicycle rims lined one wall like dull halos.
A workbench ran along the back. Vise. Radio. Green glass ashtray. Jar of root beer barrels.
Mr. Hobb rolled the Huffy past Eddie and clamped it into a repair stand between the workbench and the garage door, close enough that Eddie had to step around it to leave.
Joey found the candy first.
“Can we have one?”
Susan shot him a look.
Mr. Hobb tightened the clamp around the Huffy’s frame.
“Help yourself.”
Joey took two.
Tommy took one, then another when he thought no one was looking.
Eddie reached for the jar, then looked down at the red spots drying on his Star Wars shirt.
Susan shook her head.
He pulled his hand away.
The repair stand held the bike at a slight angle. Mr. Hobb spun the pedals. The chain dragged and clicked.
“Nothing serious.”
Eddie’s shoulders loosened.
“Really?”
“Nope. Chain’s just complaining.”
Mr. Hobb reached for a wrench without looking.
“Everything complains when it gets bent.”
The radio played low from the workbench. Baseball, maybe. Men’s voices rising and falling under static.
Joey laughed too loud at something Tommy said. Not a real laugh. The kind that came from a kid who needed to fill space.
Tommy rolled the root beer barrel in his cheek.
“You got a lot of bike stuff.”
“Kids used to bring them by.”
“Used to?”
The wrench turned once.
“Children grow up.”
Susan drifted toward the shelf by the side door.
More banana seats sat up there. Four of them. Maybe five. One black. One red with glitter in the vinyl. Two white. One yellow with a split down the side repaired with electrical tape.
A little metal license plate hung from the back of the yellow one.
KEVIN M.
Black letters on orange plastic.
Every kid knew the name, even if nobody talked about him much anymore.
Kevin Marsh had disappeared two summers before.
Adults said runaway.
Kids said creek.
Joey said Mrs. Grettle.
The license plate hung still in the dead garage air.
Susan turned around.
Mr. Hobb was looking at the shelf too.
“Found that at a rummage sale,” he said.
Susan did not speak.
“Kids put their names on everything.”
Outside, a sprinkler ticked across a lawn.
Joey coughed.
Short. Wet. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, and the hand came away with a thin string of spit.
“You okay?” Susan said.
“Candy’s weird.” His voice came out smaller than he meant it to.
Tommy had stopped talking. He stood with one hand flat on the workbench, looking at nothing.
Eddie stood near the Huffy while Mr. Hobb adjusted the white banana seat. The old man had flipped it upside down to tighten the mounting bracket. A seam ran along the bottom where the vinyl had been pulled tight and stapled.
Mr. Hobb ran his thumb along it.
“Funny seats, these.”
The wrench clicked.
“Kids think they’re something special. Long enough for two. High enough to be seen.”
Joey bent forward. A string of spit dropped from his mouth to the concrete.
Tommy’s knees buckled. He caught himself against the workbench, knocking the jar of root beer barrels sideways. Candy rolled across the wood and clicked against a coffee can labeled WASHERS.
Mr. Hobb set the wrench down.
Metal on wood.
“Easy now,” he said.
Susan moved before the words finished.
She went to Joey. Eddie limped toward Tommy, one hand still gripping the edge of the repair stand for balance.
Mr. Hobb moved behind them.
Not fast.
Not dramatic.
Just a man stepping around children who had turned their backs.
Joey made a thin noise through his nose. Susan put one hand on his shoulder. His shirt was damp under her palm.
“Joey?”
Eddie crouched beside Tommy. His right knee bent halfway and started to shake.
“Tommy, get up.”
Behind them, the chain rattled.
Susan looked back.
Mr. Hobb stood by the garage door, one hand on the manual chain. The big door began to drop in sections.
“No,” Susan said.
She ran for it.
Eddie tried to stand. His right knee quit under him, and he caught the repair stand hard enough to make the Huffy swing in its clamp.
The bright rectangle narrowed.
Yard.
Street.
Curb.
Mrs. Grettle’s yellow curtains across the way, her cat in the window.
Watching.
Susan reached the threshold and dropped to her hands and knees, trying to get under the door.
Her ponytail jerked tight.
One pull. Short. Efficient.
The back of her head hit the concrete and the garage went white for a second, then gray, then back.
Mr. Hobb stepped over her and waited for the door to settle into its track.
A final clunk.
He slid the lock into place and crossed to the workbench.
Susan pulled herself up onto one elbow. Her fingers pressed flat against the floor, testing it.
She tried to push herself backward with her heels.
Mr. Hobb reached the workbench before she made it a foot.
The duct tape hung from its nail, loose gray end folded into a tab. Ready to pull.
“Useful thing, a witch.”
“Helen never had to do much. Just keep the curtains shut.”
The tape came off the roll with a ripping scream.
“Men, though.”
“Men fix things.”